Platforms

Our working definition of a digital platform (with a hat tip to Harold Feld of Public Knowledge) is an online service that operates as a two-sided or multi-sided market with at least one side that is “open” to the mass market

More than three-fourths of Americans fear abuses of artificial intelligence will affect the 2024 presidential election

Seventy-eight percent of American adults expect abuses of artificial intelligence systems (AIs) that will affect the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, according to a new national survey by the Elon Poll and the Imagining the Digital Future Center at Elon University. The survey finds:

A Bipartisan Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence Policy

The Bipartisan Senate AI Working Group comprised of Senator Todd Young (R-IN), Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY), Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD), and Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) today released a roadmap for artificial intelligence policy in the United States Senate. This AI policy roadmap summarizes the findings of the bipartisan working group and highlights policy topics that the group believes merit bipartisan consideration in the Senate in the 118th Congress and beyond.

Sunset of Section 230 Would Force Big Tech’s Hand

The internet’s original promise was to help people and businesses connect, innovate and share information. Congress passed the Communications Decency Act in 1996 to realize those goals. It was an overwhelming success. Section 230 of the act helped shepherd the internet from the “you’ve got mail” era into today’s global nexus of communication and commerce. Unfortunately, Section 230 is now poisoning the healthy online ecosystem it once fostered.

Is there a middle way on children and smartphones? This researcher thinks so

The debate on children’s use of smartphones can veer towards two extremes. There are those who see a generation made fragile by technology. They point to studies showing that social media does not just correlate with poor mental health; it causes it. The other extreme sees this as another misguided moral panic, such as the one once aimed at video games. But there are possibilities for nuance and compromise. Sonia Livingstone is a social psychologist who leads research at the London School of Economics into children’s digital lives. Livingstone’s research has led her to focus on two points.

Google suing Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to have YouTube video ad revenue exempted from regulatory fees

Google is taking Canada's broadcasting regulator to court, arguing "significant" revenue it earns from advertisements on YouTube videos shouldn't be considered when it comes to the regulatory fees it owes the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). In an application filed in the Federal Court of Canada on April 24, Google says those revenues come from user-generated content, which it argues should be excluded from fee calculations because of exemptions in the Broadcasting Act. But the tech giant says that after submitting a form to the regulator which outlined it

OpenAI inks licensing deal with Dotdash Meredith

Dotdash Meredith, one of the largest digital publishers in the US, inked a deal with OpenAI to license its content to train 

Meta Seeks Do-Over In Battle With Advertisers Over Inflated Metrics

Meta Platforms is urging a federal appellate court to reconsider a recent 2-1 decision allowing Facebook and Instagram advertisers to proceed with a class-action fraud lawsuit over inflated metrics.

TikTok files court challenge to US law that could lead to ban

TikTok and its parent company ByteDance challenged the US government in a legal filing on May 7 over a new law forcing the sale or ban of the social media giant, igniting a high-stakes court battle in Washington that could prove to be an existential fight for one of the world’s most popular apps. President Biden signed a law in April demanding that China-based ByteDance sell TikTok within a year or be banned across the United States, arguing that the Chinese government c

A New Diplomatic Strategy Emerges as Artificial Intelligence Grows

American and Chinese diplomats plan to meet to begin what amounts to the first, tentative arms control talks over the use of artificial intelligence. The talks in Geneva are an attempt to find some common ground on how A.I. will be used and in which situations it could be banned—for example, in the command and control of each country’s nuclear arsenals.

Microsoft and OpenAI launch Societal Resilience Fund

Microsoft and OpenAI launched a $2 million Societal Resilience Fund to further artificial intelligence education and literacy among voters and vulnerable communities. Grants delivered from the fund will help several organizations—including Older Adults Technology Services from AARP (OATS), the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) and Partnership on AI (PAI)—to deliver AI education and support their work to create better understanding of AI capabilities.